I don't believe ebonics "dumbs you down" I grew up around the dialect. I grew up in downtown Atlanta.
Again, Ebonics being it's own language is retarted. Sorry it is.
I don't believe ebonics "dumbs you down" I grew up around the dialect. I grew up in downtown Atlanta.
Again, Ebonics being it's own language is retarted. Sorry it is.
Oh because slang is just with a race.?! Jesus fucking christ. Get a god damn grip. Leave the fucking race card alone and pick another argument because that one is fucking over used by you and moot.
Point a finger and call us all racists if that's the best you have to offer.
slang sounds fucking uneducated at best. And let me just say slang is not connected with ANY certain group . Or defined by a god damn race.
"SCENES" however have their own ebonical terms and yes outside of those realms it sounds fucking stupid.
Just like someone using internet speak in real life. it has it's place. and it's time. Ravers have their own ebonics. So do club kids and crust punks..
ebonics and slang same fucking difference for fucks sake.
Last edited by Tart; 08-19-2007 at 02:16 AM. Reason: Because I didnt use the correct term
My company actually translates the US Customs declaration forms in about 24 languages, so I'm usually much more focused on whether our QA staff was paying attention to producing PDFs in outline form so the DHS printers do not produce gibberish because their printers lacked the proper font support or settings in the bidirectional languages. And Arabic has nothing on Pashto or Dari, trust me.
If I were a full-time lexicographer, rather than a business owner, I would probably see the inside of a strip club once every decade. Maybe. But thankfully, I have a wide variety of professional titles and interests, including business owner, stock trader, translator, author, commentator, columnist, media spokesman, and, alas, lexicographer.
My college roommates, who were kept up through endless nights of, well, enthusiastic female vocalisms, once insisted on a trip to Jamaica that I actually write "gigolo" on the form, even though I protested that I was never actually a gigolo, but a dom female pleaser in very intense training. We settled on "student" to keep from being sent home on the next outbound flight.![]()
Im so fucking irritated with this BULLSHIT.
God help us all. I have to go flick my bean or something and let out this aggression .
I'm just going to go back and stare at that picture of George Clooney.
Ah, much better. You know, this reminds me of my folklore class. The term "folklore" has a very specific definition among folklorists, and applies to very specific things. For something to qualify as being "folk" to a folklorist, it cannot be formally taught, it cannot be popularly distributed in a fixed form (e.g. a song on the radio or a printed story) and it cannot be commissioned (paid to perform). So, making up songs to sing around the campfire is "folk", playing Stairway to Heaven on your guitar is not "folk".
Now, if you hear a song by the Indigo Girls on the radio, what genre is it? Folk. Does that mean everyone who calls the Indigo Girls a folk band is wrong, and that they're not giving proper attention to the study of folklore by using that term? No, it means that according to the popular understanding, the word "folk" has a different meaning than the strict scholastic definition.
My point in all this is that nobody outside of linguists gives a tin shit whether ebonics has an efficient structure and blah, blah, blah. Furthermore, I should think that someone who claims to be a linguist would know that English DOES have established rules and grammatical structure, all established languages do! That's what qualifies it as a language. And so, yes, there IS a right way and a wrong way to speak that language, spell words, and use words in context. If you want to make the argument that language drift occurs because eventually enough people speak a language incorrectly that their speech eventually develops its own rules and grammar, then okay, I can accept that. But let's face it--ebonics arose in the first place as a vernacular of the least educated and wealthy segment of society, and it is STILL the vernacular of that same segment. Notice how I'm not including race in here, because as has been stated several times, there are about a zillion white and/or Asian kids who emulate this speech because they think it's cool, and plenty of people of all races (and economic levels) who don't speak like this either. So it has nothing to do with REGION, or isolation of a population, which is usually what affects language, and everything to do with the perception of status of people who use that vernacular, and the imitation of that vernacular by the people who want to appropriate that supposed status.
I see no reason to admire or legitimize the LACK of effort a person or group of person puts into communicating properly with his neighbor. This is right up there with lowering any other educational standard so you can get an A for doing less work or work of a poorer quality. And luckily, the law seemed to agree that there was no need to legitimize it either by including it in the curriculum.
This whole discussion reminds me of the scene in "To Kill A Mockingbird" when Calpurnia takes the kids to her neighborhood. She slips into ebonics while she's there even though she speaks proper English while in the Finch household, and Scout asks her why. Calpurnia says that it's not because she *can't* do it, but that her peers would consider her stuck-up or trying to reach beyond her social level if she spoke properly around them. Which only emphasizes my point, that people TODAY speak ebonics not because it's their "native language" but because they choose to despite being exposed to plenty of influences in speaking American Standard (in, say, virtually every piece of printed literature, 12 years of compulsory education and every news and non-pop show on television). In a lot of cases, they learn how to speak correctly and THEN dumb down their language! That is not language drift either. That's the use of slang.
Last edited by aviendha; 08-18-2007 at 11:50 PM.





i dont think ive ever agreed with one person on here as much as i have with you in quite a few threads recently. haha..
i dont care if a person is black, white, asian, hispanic, freaking sweedish for all i care. i will always think that ebonics makes a person sound uneducated, regardless of race, ethnicity, or anything else.




Let me try to address the issue of a "language" vs. a "dialect," because I know it can get confusing.
So, let me quote from a text, because I have no special credibility here, other than having taken a Linguistics 101 course (and dating a hot linguist.)
The text is Language: Readings in Language and Culture, 6th edition, edited by Clark, Eschholz & Rosa)
"We all speak a dialect; a dialect is not a language form spoken by other people in other places." The linguist's definition of a dialect is that it is "simply a habitual variety of a language, regional or social. It is set off from all other such habitual varieties by a unique combination of language features: words and meanings, grammatical forms, phrase structures, pronunciations, patterns of stress and intonation...No dialect is simply good or bad in itself; its prestige comes from the prestige of those who use it. But every dialect is in itself a legitimate form of the language, a valid instrument of human communication, and something worthy of serious study."
So, in this sense, Standard Vernacular English is a dialect, just as AAVE is a dialect. (Given this fact, Cameron is probably correct in describing speakers fluent in both vernaculars as "bidialectical.")
However, in any culture, there is almost always a dialect that is spoken by the ruling classes, which is considered the "official language" of the culture. Variations from that official "language" are classed--socially and culturally--as "dialects" of the dominant "language." But linguistically, the terms "language" and "dialect" are sort of interchangeable.
So how do you know if something is a language or a dialect? One possible answer is "mutual intelligibility." If you can more-or-less figure out what someone is saying, they are probably speaking a "dialect" of the same "language" that you speak--or, rather, a language that is very closely related to the one you speak, and very recently diverged.
However, even this criterion is not sufficient to define a language vs. a dialect. Case in point: Swedish and Norwegian are more-or-less mutually intelligible. But they are culturally defined as different 'languages.' Why? Apparently because the Swedes and the Norwegians can't stand each other.
OTOH, Mandarin and Cantonese are NOT mutually intelligible, yet they are both defined as "dialects" of the "Chinese language" because their speakers are united under the same government and culture.
So, yeah, it's confusing. But I just thought I'd add my two little obnoxiously academic cents on this issue.
Last edited by Nicolina; 08-19-2007 at 02:12 AM.
"Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
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This isn't true, CO. Read any scholarly work on the subject and you will find that BEV/AAVE has its own very well-defined grammatical rules. Just as there are multiple ways to express the same thought in standard English, there can be multiple ways to express a single thought within the well-defined rules of AAVE. This may be what you are perceiving as "unpredictability." But if you read the work of linguists who have really studied the structure of the language, you'll see how multiple forms may be conforming to a single a set of rules.
e.g.:
Geneva Smitherman's book, Talkin' and Testifyin': The Language of Black America.
William Labov and Steven Pinker are two other linguists who have written on the subject.
I don't think this is a point of contention among linguists.
A quote from Dr. Labov (professor of linguistics at UPenn), taken from his Testimony on "Ebonics" given January 23rd before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education of the Senate Appropriations Committee:
"The term "Ebonics," our main focus here, has been used to suggest that there is a language, or features of language, common to all people of African ancestry, whether they live in Africa, Brazil or the United States. Linguists who have published studies of the African American community do not used this term, but refer instead to African American Vernacular English, a dialect spoken by most residents of the inner cities. This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America. It is not simply slang, or grammatical mistakes, but a well-formed set of rules of pronunciation and grammar that is capable of conveying complex logic and reasoning."
"Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
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^ well goddamnit I didn't cornrow or wear the fubu
can we still be friends ?
BTW I just wikipedia ebonics and read it all
I always saw ebonics as "slang" not certain to any race. I'm sure most probably see and feel the same way.
Now I'm educated to call it slang verses ebonics. So to restate what I said..
Using slang dumbs people down.
But what does this say about people that aren't black and use ebonics? I'm curious to know .





thank you damnit.
I totally went back and edited my posts to say slang instead of ebonics because I never understood there was a serious difference.
This lil polish girl has been educated.
I still hate slang though lol




A lot of people in this thread have mentioned suburban white kids who co-opt some of the vocabulary/pronunciation/grammar that they hear in hip-hop.
IMO, this is completely different from being fluent in AAVE.
I guess technically, white kids who mix AAVE with standard English are speaking a pidgin. Maybe in the next generation, we'll get a brand-new creole.![]()
"Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
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Im so not trying to go through 4 pages of rants ,flaming and some actual info to figure this out so i'll just ask (and hopefully get a simple answer )
what is AAVE?




"African-American Vernacular English." (formerly known as Black English Vernacular/BEV for short.)
Sorry, other folks had mentioned earlier that this is the term used by linguists to denote the dialect in question. "Ebonics" was a word invented by educators, I think. Someone went into it back on page one, I think.
"Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
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too's been spying on my myspace page for background checks!![]()
exactly why lolcats speak isn't considered a separate language...yet!
but we'll get there eventually. we'll be in ur languages!![]()
exactly my point.
btw, i loved the "mockingbird" reference. i didn't remember that at all from the story. good one!![]()
another great example! but i think their link together has to do just as much with their written language being identical as the political/social one you noted.
but the divergence of pronounciation is a great example/analogy of the situation we're currently discussing with 'ebonics'. especially because cantonese is considered the "lower class" and mandarin considered the "ruling class" or "northern speak".
now there WILL be a maelstrom of backlash from the cantonese speakers on that view/definition(especially british educated hong kong'ers) but that's the general view from the gov't, educators, and upper class. <--(modesty aside that's where my family background comes from so i hear it from that social group)
will ebonics eventually evolve into a separate (recognized) dialect and then language? maybe. but again, i think the originators of the term were completely wrong in their intent (catering to politics imho).
there's a number of sub-discussions that can evolve from that simple point though (education methods, budgets-political/social, racial issues, and so on). bleh.




Know what I think?
Shitty English is shitty english. Period.
Trying to give it a name and a title isn't going to change the fact that it's SHITTY ENGLISH.





Slang is the words you use. Ebonics(not that I endorse it) has that plus a host of grammatical and phonetic rule changes. Replacing "friend" with "homie" is slang. A systematic replacing of the "th" sound with the easier to pronounce "d" sound is far more than slang. They are the very close physically, and many non-native speakers have a hard time with the "th" sound. They often replace it with "d" pure "t"(west indians tend to do this, they pronounced my name "Tim-o-tee-" rather than "Tim-o-thee", or say "one, two, tree")
Proper English is filled with a lot of imporperties anyway, so I see no reason why it is superior in any way except the tastes of the listener. I get irked when i hear "Aren't i'. Are is not the conjugate of 'to be' that matches with "I', yet pretentious assholes say it with EMPHASIS to make sure everybody knows they aren't using "Ain't I". I use "Ain't I". What is proper about using the plural form of "to be" with a singular pronoun? Nothing.
The double negative is so common, it seems to suggest that people have a certain preference by nature to use double-negativity for emphasis, rather than negation. "I'm not doing nothing" seems to want to naturally emphasize the lack of doing something, instead of being a convoluted way to say 'I'm doing something'. Since descriptions are of what people are doing/being, not what they are not doing, it seems like a natural habit. Many languages contain a built-in double negative for negation, such as French's "je" and "pas". Two negatives don't make a positive in French.
THen we have the drift of pronunciation and phonics away from the written word. "Right' is spelled as it is, yet it sounds like "rite". In older English, it was pronounced "richte", much more close to the way it is spelled. The list of these is nearly endless. Many who are unaware of the difference will pronounce it the way it is spelled, which to me seems sensible. Maybe they are the ones doing things correctly, trying to bring written and spoken word back in harmony. Remember that scene in Pretty Woman where she says "Ver Says" instead of 'Ver Sa Che"? We all laughed at her for being so ignorant and uncouth, yet she was following the rules of the language.
One area of grammar-Nazism I engage in is refusing to couple "more" with the comparative form of an adverb or adjective. "She is more close to me" or "She is closer to me" as opposed to "She is more closer to me". To me, the second begins to imply some sort of calculus like situation, a rate of change. Speed versus acceleration. Yet, it is so common, it has to make me wonder if that is some kind of natural tendency that "Proper English" has drifted away from by importing too many foreign words without converting them. In some sense, it's similar to the double negative. "more closer" is understood by most to mean "closer" but with a little more umph. than "closer"
Speaking of "umph", is it considered proper to take onomatopoeia and then use their nounified version? Nounification is a contraversial subject, too! The gutteral noise of "umph" becomes an elegant noun used to convey a slight bit of...umph. Nothing describes an onomatopoeia like an onomatopoeia.
Nounification itself is something that is transforming English these days, but because it "sounds proper" it is accepted. For example, I try to use the active voice. "She fucked". Yet, stuffy professors would prefer "She made love" or "she had sex". The less you use active voice, the more intelligent you sound, to some circles, like if you read any kind of political press release, there is very little active voice used at all. People "make statements", they don't "state". "She drove the car" has been pushed into the sea by "The car was driven by her". I concede that sometimes the emphasis wants to naturally move to the object in certain situations, but less common than the usage of passive voice, I feel.
Ebonics tends to eschew the passive voice and use the active voice. I cannot prove this, but my intuition tells me it has something to do with the overstressed masculinity of black culture. Active voice focuses on the doer. "I fucked her". Passive voice focuses on what got done to something. "She was fucked by Tim." The Academe focus on the passive might be because academics are feminine and thus, feel more connected to the passive voice. Slightly facetious, but it might be true.
Last edited by Sh0t; 08-19-2007 at 09:35 AM.




The problem is not with ebonics itself. It's with people not knowing how to spaek proper english when the situation calls for it. Speak however the hell you want to around your peers but if you are in a professional setting than adhere to the proper standards.I think that the problem is,many black youth might LEARN proper english but hardly EVER actually hear it spoken. Their parents, friends parents, the cashier at wal-mart, even some TEACHERS in an attemept to relate with thier students speak slang or ebonics.That sends a message that it's not really neseccesary to speak properly.





Aaa-A-A--A MEN!!I hate to restate it but Black people's slang, dialect, etc. isn't about rappers and their videos. That's street. I could go to anytown and hang with the hustlers of any race and economic level and hear their style of speaking. It'll no doubt be foolish (hence the illegal hustling lifestyle). That's not the same as the light, fun lingo their legal living neighbors speak.
The goal for the legal livin' folks is to have fun and infuse more emotion in their conversation. Say it in a way that amplifies the FEELING. It's moving to hear, it's moving to say. It isn't about cursing or stupidity. It's about the pure joy some people feel in speaking! That's how our sayings get adopted. Plenty of descriptive fun expressions are adopted from us all the time so consider that before you trash all Black dialectical usage.
So, having said all of that--STOP taking that lowlife foolishness that some rappers glorify and equating it with Black dialect. I don't equate rocker foolishness with Euro-Americans. It's just one group talkin' crazy! (See how I used the slang to get a giggle out of yas?!) [note yas is a Philly white slang thing meaning you all or y'all]![]()
“What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.” - ECKHART TOLLE





Wha wha wha? Uh, where did I call you a racist? You didn't state any opinions of your own to begin with.
Though I have enjoyed all of the thoughtful and interesting commentary you've contributed to this thread. Oh, wait, you started it, never to return until now, to jump down my throat for no reason.
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